The death registers of the registrar general as sources for social and demographic history

There can be little doubt that some of the most promising data for socio-historical demographic research can be found in the keeping of each state's Registrar General. Unfortunately, as in Britain, these sources are generally unavailable to the researcher in Australia..

The changing face of rural general practice: an ethnographic study of general practitioners and their spouses

Rural general practice is general practice at its best: a comment by one GP interviewed for this study was echoed by colleagues who viewed their work in a rural setting as challenging, diverse, rewarding and satisfying. Despite reported difficulties associated with rural general practice, many GPs argued that the benefits outweigh the disadvantages. Few wanted to leave. Nonetheless, too few Australian trained GPs are willing to move from cities to work in the country. Consequently, overseas trained doctors have been recruited to fill vacancies or nurses provide health services in communities unable to attract a GP

Art is often a bastard, the parents of which we do not know

Whilst positioning my research within the area of Performance Studies and, more particularly, my installation praxis within the broader area of contemporary art, I am reminded of the creative ‘freedoms’ I now take for granted as an arts practitioner in the 21st Century. In this paper, I reflect on the radical avant-garde arts collective known as the Fluxus ‘laboratory’ which emerged across Europe, America and Japan during the 1950s and 60s. These artists questioned the rational, progressive and utopian ideas supporting modernism. They welcomed process and chance and rejected notions of ‘truth’ and arrival. Many early Fluxus works are now famous through documentation. Their modes of production and presentation no longer arrest us nor necessarily point us in the direction of new thought. Many of the radical influences then, have now become main-stream although, in the spirit of Fluxus, ‘intermedia’, multimedia, and technological innovation in the arts is still strong. Social critique through art is alive as many artists directly engage with local, global political concerns, through their work. The ‘attitude’ of Fluxus is healthy as many practitioners ‘push the envelope’ and challenge the status quo

A stabbing in Chawton, Jane Austen, and Emma

The article discusses a stabbing that is mentioned in a letter by the novelist Jane Austen. The event took place in Chawton, England in March 1814 and involved Stephen Mersh (b. 1796), who was allegedly stabbed by James Baigen, who was later acquitted of the crime. Details about Mersh\u27s life are presented. Information is also included about Sir Thomas Miller, who represented Chawton in Parliament from 1806-1816 and the Honorouble William Wickham, who was an acquaintance of Austen\u27s brother. Baigen, it is noted, committed suicide in 1851 after the death of his father forced the family to move away from the farm they had inhabited for generations. An episode in Austen\u27s novel Emma is described

Performing adoption, translating the self: Postmodern quest or diasporic inversion?

In contemporary ‘Western’ culture, ‘reunion’ following the silences of ‘closed’ / cross cultural adoption, provides an emotional, critical and performative site for examining ruptures within identity formation, and the problematics of ‘family’ and ‘belonging’ when an insider /outsider dichotomy is assumed. Through story, I reflect on the process of tracing and reconnecting with my birthmother in Llanelli, and my father’s family, in North Wales – a family who are ‘Welsh speakers’, members of Plaid Cymru, and who, for generations have worked on the Penhryn slate quarries near Bethesda. This piece of performative writing, engages with a contingent yet ambiguous process of articulating the ‘self’ across discontinuous and dispersed identities. I draw on my praxis through the Welsh word ‘Cyfrwng’ (trans.‘medium / a means of / communication with / between’), to reflect on the experience of creating and presenting installation works in Australia, an ‘(im)placement’ project in Wales, and other significant ‘events’ - as autoethnographic performance, an ‘insurgent act’ of (re)storying, and means of cultural translation

Aurora Leigh And Elizabeth Barrett-Browning\u27s Most Convenient Cousin

The article examines the possibility that the fictional cousin marriage in Aurora Leigh was either a token of gratitude by Elizabeth Barrett-Browning for her real-life philanthropic cousin’s generosity to her or was a masked promise of immortality to him as he lay dying

Attracting and assimilating the unchurched in the 21st century

https://place.asburyseminary.edu/ecommonsatsdissertations/1526/thumbnail.jp